Until (I think) the 1970s Whit Monday, the day after Whitsunday or the feast of Pentecost, was a bank holiday in the UK (as it still is in Ireland and some other countries), but then the holiday was secularized and assigned to the last Monday in May; but this year
Continue readingThis Wednesday, pilgrims from this parish and elsewhere will be setting off to the Marian shrine of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I will be part of the group as its chaplain, and it will be my fourth visit. My first visit goes back to December 1983. It was extremely cold and
Continue readingWe who have not been driven to turn our backs on the Church because of the scandal of sexual abuse know that, despite the evil done under the cloak of holiness, the Church remains the guardian of hope in our lives. As Jesus died on the cross, his body sullied
Continue readingMANY OF YOU will be familiar with this image – the statue of our Blessed Mother in the grounds of our lovely parish school, dedicated to her. One of the highlights of the year in Beckenham is the May procession in school, when hundreds of children go to the statue,
Continue readingAlleluia, alleluia! I am the good shepherd, says the Lord; I know my own sheep and my own know me. Alleluia! Uniquely in our readings for this Sunday Christ is described as the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice, the Good Shepherd, who tends to His flock, and also the
Continue readingThe Exsultet (Easter proclamation) relays the sin of Adam as a necessary sin that gained for us a great Redeemer. For the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has remedied the fall of our first parents and brought us a happier outcome. In other words, the paradise lost has been
Continue readingOn behalf of all the clergy I wish you a very happy and peaceful Easter. I would particularly emphasise peace – that freedom from anxiety, fear, turbulence, war. I pray that every one of you will become peacemakers and be fully committed to making peace a reality in your hearts,
Continue readingHoly Week lies ahead of us, the high point of the Christian year. The long journey through Lent enters its final furlong in the regal procession of Palm Sunday, with the rejoicing crowds spreading their clothes on the road and cutting branches from the trees; but in the course of
Continue readingThis weekend, those preparing with the RCIA to be received into the Church at Easter are being ‘presented’ with the Our Father. It is a prayer that most of us learnt to say as children, that we say routinely in our daily prayers and at Mass; but too often, perhaps,
Continue readingTHE COVID-19 PANDEMIC is still so recent a memory that it is inevitable that March each year will prompt reminiscing about its grim beginning in this country, a time of so much sadness and loss of life, much of it avoidable. This is accentuated by a continuing wait for inquiries
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